Look what happens when we dont stick to a schedule

So we spent less than 24 hours in Brussels, or Bruxelles as the French Belgiuns call it, so we had to make the most of our time. The night we arrived we went out to a traditional Belgium dinner. A lamb stew that was most excellent. We also partook in some Belgium beer, kreik(?), which is made with a special bacteria found only in the Brussels area. Yum yum.
The next day was a busy one. We had to find Belgium waffels, Belgium fries, Belgium chocolate and Mannekin Pis (supposedly the most famous site in Brussels). We meandered our way to the city center, which took more time than expected (go figure). So we had very little time to complete our to-do list. We had to march quickly back to the hostel, get our bags and zoom off to the train station. With 20 minutes to spare till the next train to Maastricht we arrived, but still needed to buy the tickets and find the train. The travel center was packed, but we spotted a ticket machine (something we have been avoiding, cuz machines rarely speak English) and took our chances. It looked as though the travel gods were still on our side, because it had a button for English and a purchase button for Maastricht. Alas when it came time to pay, they only accepted "weird" credit cards...no Visa, no MasterCard and definately no American Express. ;) Foiled again! We had to go to the Travel Center where there was a line just to take a number. When Julie finally got to the machine where every one was getting a number, it told her that she didnt need a number she needed to go to the counters on the other side of the Travel Center. We finally had our tickets in hand with 6 minutes till the train left. We love running up stairs with all our bags. :) Julie got on the first open door of the train that she saw, just to make sure we made it. It turned out it was the door to the conductor/engineer area and we werent supposed to go that way (mainly because of the huge gap between the platform and the train that we had to leap with all our baggage). But all that matters is that we made it and now we are in the Netherlands only a few miles from Valkenburg. And we accomplished every thing and more in Brussels. (ps the Belgians dont really eat the waffels it is a touristy thing, but they were still very yummy)

Signing off from the homeland....

Julie and Kara